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In “Without Blood,” written and directed by Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek plays Nina, a woman who spends her adult life looking for the three men responsible for the wartime murder of her father and brother when she was
just a child.
In two of the cases, her revenge is fatal. But then she meets the third accomplice, Tito (Demián Bichir), now a clerk in a newspaper kiosk at a train station.
The movie is in many ways a two-hander featuring Nina and Tito talking over drinks with flashback scenes chronicling both of their sometimes harrowing lives.
“I was afraid that I couldn’t play this part, and also I was afraid to go so far every day at work and go into this really difficult place,” Hayek says during a joint interview with Jolie. “At the beginning, I wasn’t sure that Angelina was directing. I thought she was just producing. I’m like, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to suffer like that. I don’t want to.’ And then she started talking to me about the importance of the piece. And then you have to understand that Angelina is an extraordinary director.”
“Without Blood” is an adaptation of Italian writer Alessandro Baricco’s novella of the same name. Like the book, the movie doesn’t specify the time or the location where the story takes place, nor identify the war at the center of the story. The characters speak English and Spanish.
“I wanted it to be that anyone watching it from anywhere could identify with it,” Jolie says. “Even if it wasn’t an actual war or a conflict, there’s something beautiful in the book where it says, ‘We return to where we break.’ So part of the conflict and the idea of the film is that anybody can identify with something in your life where something happened where it broke you and changed you, and how much you wish you could sit across from that person and have answers and have some kind of say your piece and hope that they could see you and hope that it gives you some kind of healing or closure. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t give you what you think you’re looking for or doesn’t heal those.”
This isn’t the first time Jolie has made a film about war and conflict. Her directorial debut was the Bosnian war drama “In the Land of Blood and Money” in 2011. “Unbroken” (2014) told the story of American prisoners-of-war during World War II. The life of Cambodian author and human rights activist Loung Ung under the rule of the Khmer Rouge was the subject of “First They Killed My Father” in 2017.
“In ‘First They Killed My Father,’ we had trauma therapy tents because a lot of people there had been through war and I’ve learned that everybody’s been through some level of trauma,” Jolie says. “What we did on this was the time spent with everybody discussing it. We all ended up spending a lot of time talking about our pain, talking about our losses, our traumas. Obviously, community can be very, very healing.”
Jolie and Hayek Pinault first worked together five years ago when they co-starred in the Marvel movie “Eternals.” Next, Jolie will serve as a producer on Hayek Pinault’s directorial debut, “Arena,” an epic romantic adventure that the “Frida” star also wrote.
“In a way, she’s my partner,” Hayek Pinault says. “I’ve written two different scripts with two different pens that she gave me. It’s a really good, enriching and artistic relationship. That is hard to find. It’s such a gift.”
I asked Jolie if she’s ever been tempted to direct lighter material like a comedy. “We’ve laughed a lot. We fantasized about making different comedies together,” Hayek Pinault says.
Jolie laughs, “My comedies tend to be a bit dark. I think I have a dark sense of humor.”
Hayek Pinault turns to Jolie and says, “You’re funny. So funny. She just keeps it a secret.”
Jolie isn’t sure she has what it takes to helm comedy. “I don’t know how good I’d be. You have those things that we think, as an actress, you like to try everything and then you get to a point you realize other actors are good at certain things and there are many who are better at comedy than I am. But I do think I’m a pretty good straight person, like the ‘Maleficent.’ I’m a good straight.”
“Without Blood” is in theaters now.
